He said that passengers were stuck on his plane because their gate was being blocked by a grounded aircraft.

He said: “Pretty much as soon as we touched down the pilot came over (the radio) and said ‘I’m really sorry about this but I have just been informed that no planes are departing from the south of England’.

“He said that as a result of the fact that the gate we were going to go in has a plane there we were to expect a considerable delay.

“At the moment we are just taxiing aimlessly as far as I can tell.”

Heathrow said there were no aircraft departing or arriving at the west London airport.

It became clear that all London airspace would be closed until at least 7pm.

One passenger caught up in the travel chaos was Matt Warren.

He tweeted: ” Stuck on the tarmac at Heathrow airport. Air traffic control failures. No flights in or out. ”